By NEIL A. LEWIS

Published: January 3, 1999

WASHINGTON, Jan. 2—
Commerce Secretary William M. Daley has asked the department's inspector general to expand his investigation into whether officials systematically concealed and destroyed documents sought in a lawsuit, after a Federal judge made those charges in a stinging rebuke of the department, officials said this week.

Judge Royce C. Lamberth compared the behavior of former Commerce officials to that of ''con artists'' and ''scofflaws.'' In harshly criticizing the department in a ruling last month, Judge Lamberth demonstrated that he had lost patience in trying to supervise a lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch, a conservative group, against the department. Judicial Watch has charged in its four-year-old lawsuit that the late Secretary of Commerce, Ronald H. Brown, favored donors to the Democratic Party in giving out highly prized seats on Government trade missions overseas.

Judge Lamberth said there was clear evidence that after Secretary Brown was killed in a plane crash on April 3, 1996, during a trade mission to Bosnia and Croatia, ''there was a flurry of document shredding in the Secretary's office.'' Further, he said, there was ample evidence that department officials never really conducted any serious search for the documents sought by Judicial Watch in requests authorized by the court.

He also complained that some former Department officials had improperly taken official documents with them when they left to go into the private sector. He ordered those documents returned along with videotapes and audiotapes of some of the trade missions, which had been sent to Howard University to become part of a permanent ''Ron H. Brown Jr. Collection.''

And finally, he complained that the Department handed out awards to some of the very employees who were involved in the delay and destruction of the documents.

Morrie Goodman, the Commerce Department chief spokesman, said last week that Secretary Daley would do everything possible to find out what had occurred. Mr. Goodman said it would be improper for the department to investigate itself, so the Secretary has asked the acting inspector general assigned to Commerce, Johnnie Frazier, to undertake the investigation. Mr. Frazier was already looking into some aspects of the matter, officials said.

None of the officials whose actions were criticized by Judge Lamberth are still with the department.

Judge Lamberth also noted that Nolanda S. Hill, whom he described as a business partner and confidante of Mr. Brown, has testified that Mr. Brown told her he was ordered by senior White House officials to ''slow down'' the effort to comply with Judicial Watch's requests.

In her deposition, Ms. Hill testified that Mr. Brown had said the orders came from Leon E. Panetta, then the White House chief of staff, and John D. Podesta, who is now the chief of staff. James Kennedy, a White House spokesman, said on Thursday that the accusations about Mr. Panetta and Mr. Podesta were untrue. ''Ms. Hill's allegations are false in every respect,'' Mr. Kennedy said.

In detailing his criticisms of the department, Judge Lamberth singled out Ginger Lew, the former general counsel at Commerce, saying she had repeatedly tried to avoid being served with a subpoena. ''Why a high-level Government employee like Ms. Lew would play these games, usually reserved for con artists and hooligans, is impossible for the court to fathom,'' Judge Lamberth wrote.

Her lawyer, Philip Gagner, suggested in an interview that Judge Lamberth did not fully understand the interaction between Ms. Lew and Larry Klayman, the chief counsel for Judicial Watch. ''Ms. Lew did not in any way attempt to evade service of the subpoena,'' Mr. Gagner said.

Mr. Gagner said that Ms. Lew had tried hard to cooperate but that Mr. Klayman was interested only in media attention. Judge Lamberth conceded that Mr. Klayman could be difficult and had been partly responsible for some of the difficulties during depositions.

Meanwhile, Judge Lamberth has ordered that new depositions be taken from Ms. Lew as well as of John Huang, whose earlier testimony he described as wholly implausible. Mr. Huang who was an official at both the department and the Democratic National Committee remains under investigation by a Justice Department task force looking into possible irregularities in campaign fund-raising.

Under Judge Lamberth's ruling, the new round of depositions will take place under the direct supervision of a Federal magistrate-judge.